it would seem that you are adding to the count of customers coming through and that the sales totals will not match up.

I'm fairly certain the person at the window isn't the one that set this policy. Isn't arguing with the window person over this kind of shooting the messenger?

@Smashville:
You know, there comes a time when the civilized world must occasionally, quite literally, shot the messenger: sometimes "I was just following orders" doesn't cut it.

@Smashville: No! They are the "face" of the company. Just like you can bash the company over the behavior of one employee, you can bash the employee for the behavior of the company.

/rant

Sorry, I'm a little moody today

I've been asked to pull up and park, they'll bring me the order. This was when there was NOBODY behind me. After pointing that out, they just looked offended that I wouldn't comply.

yea, this wouldn't fix it... this would only throw it off based upon how many cars are in the que

I had this done to me maybe a month ago, but the guy told me to pull back beyond a certain point (some pole thing that's always there, I guess to try and thwart bag nappers from running up behind), but he told me to STAY behind that pole until he held my bag out the window. I just landed my first job after 6 months of unemployment and picked up some new comics as well, so I was in a good mood and didn't think much of it.

Yeah, if this happens again, I'm saying, "Sure, only if you give me more fries or a free pie or something."

Cheating is really the only way they can meet the impossible goals set forth by corporate. These fast food companies want a fast drive through time, but don't give local store management the labor hours to really make it happen honestly. Management can increase labor which gets the times down, but then they get bitched at for going over labor. They can meet labor goals, but then the times go back up, and they get bitched at again. Either way they're going to get bitched at one way or another.

@Ronin-Democrat: Of course if you don't do it, you're risking some spittle in your food. I would just pull around to the window and say, "Oops, I wasn't paying attention. Give me my food."

So I said something like, "But how will the times get faster if you don't acknowledge that there's a problem?"

I guess one could take a stand on principle such as this. For me, though, if they asked me to play their little game and I felt like doing it, I probably would. Or maybe I wouldn't.

The point is, it's an internal metric for Burger King, and therefore I can't get too worked up over the fact this branch is trying to cheat it.

I, on the other hand, have two scores for a drive-thru: "satisfactory" and "unsatisfactory". Score the former, and I return. Score the latter, and I don't return.

When I was working at McDonalds we had to press a button to clear the order when it was completed to stop the timer. When the button was pressed it would also clear the screen of the order so we supposedly wouldn't know what to give the customer. We would just press the button as soon as the receipt was printed and use that instead, our times were fantastic.

BK and other fast food joints are obviously not in the business of caring about anything except profits and the perception that the employees are doing a good job. Your fries might be soggy, the burger might look like it got thrown against the window, the soda may taste more like water, but if they can make it seem as if you're satisfied (because the lack of complaints equal satisfaction apparently), they'll get a pat on the back. It's not surprising that BK wants to fool the timer. Everyone else's service suffers, but they met their quota!

Meanwhile they are spitting on your food while you are arguing with them about pulling your car up to sit in the "Penalty Box" as I refer to it.

@wvFrugan: But this isn't the time to do it. It is a fast food place, not the White House. There is a time and place for questioning of this sort of practice...the fast food drive thru is not it.

Our local Burger King was doing something similar a few months ago. They weren't asking people to pull forward and then back up, they were asking people to pull around to the front of the store and wait there for the food.

The first time they asked me to do it I did it without questioning why. The next time they asked me I questioned why since there wasn't anyone behind me. The manager came over to me and told me I had to pull around the front of the store. I told her I would not do that and I asked for, and received, my money back. Just to tick her off I proceeded to take my time in putting my money back into my wallet before driving away.

I reported this to Burger King Corporate that same day. About a week later I went to the window again but this time I wasn't asked to pull up to the front to wait for our food.

Here's a tip on how to not have to "pull up". Usually, fast food restaurants have two windows..one for the money and one for the food. When you go to the second window and they tell you to pull forward to wait on your food, simply tell them that you don't have time to wait, and that you would like your money back. Be polite about it. Since the person handing out food can't give you your money, they will usually make a point to walk back there and "check on" your order, asking the preparer to make your food faster. This has happened to me about 5 times in the last 3 years and has worked every time.

YMMV

@Ayanami: The existence of a fast food manager is a constant series of damned if you do damned if you don't choices.

Sure it's not brain surgery but the constant bitching and impossible goals from upper management coupled with the constant scapegoating by other store level managers make it one of the most stressful jobs I have ever had.

I have never been asked to do this sort of thing at any drive-thru I have ever been at. And honestly, if asked, I probably would not care about doing it. I have had their job and it is a tough one especially with customers like selfish mom at the wheel of the car.

I worked at McD for 3.5 years when I was in high school and worked the drive-thru the entire time, eventually winning the all American competition for my region (yea really exciting stuff right). There was a button on the drive-thru that you can press to tell them if they were served or parked. If you parked them it kept the time running until you pressed it saying that they got their food. Not everyone pressed that button, I am sure most just pressed served button and called it complete. But there is a button because it was McD policy (at least at my corporate store) to park people if you could keep the line moving.

Side note if they tell you to pull forward, just do it, even if there is no one behind you, it keeps the flow going if some one comes up behind you and orders a 21oz. coke.

@thelushie:
That is a rather unfortunate comment, we see what you did there.

@Ayanami: I'd believe that except that every time I pull up to a drive thru window (lunch rush or otherwise), there are employees just hanging out and chatting...usually with the manager. The problem isn't labor hours and it isn't time goals. It's teenaged managers who don't know how to lead and direct personnel effectively. Better training and follow up would be the better answer.

@Smashville:

No, it's not shooting the messenger. It is likely that the time goals are set by the franchise owner or manager and that the employees, who are apparently unable of living up to even the basic requirements of a fast food job, are cheating the system all on their own.

If they can go to the trouble of cheating the system, why can't they put my burger and fries into a paper bag in a reasonable amount of time?

@rpm773: Just call the 800 number on the back of the receipt and inform them of what you were asked to do.

I think the time metrics are generally a pretty human-unfriendly approach for both employee and customer, and I can't really get behind the "But how will things get faster then?" complaint of the blogger--I can't really think the world needs drive thru food to come faster than it already does.

That being said, I as a customer would like to be left out of whatever ways employees wish to deal with the policy. If they want to go out and drive back and forth themselves, that's fine by me, but please don't expect customers to futz around to serve you.

There are a couple of places where I just hate to piss-off the workers.

1) Places where they are about to handle your food.

2) Places where they are about to cut your hair.

Just the smallest mistake - an innocent little error - and you regret it for quite a while.

Now - if they have just given me my food - all bets are off. If you deserve to be treated badly - watch out, here it comes.

@burnedout: If someone were better trained and more experienced, I don't think they could get away with paying them pennies more than the shift workers.

At my local Carl's Jr., they send someone out the back door and ask you not to pull all the way up to the window. They take your money from several feet behind the window. One day, I did this but then the guy in the car that pulled up behind me became very irate. He got out of his car, came up to my window and started screaming at me.

I called Carl's Corporate Office after this incident, but I got nowhere with them and my local restaurant still does this.

Did you ever order at the DQ drivethru???

Oh I know - hard to speed it up without making things ahead of time. Things like blizzards would be tough to store.

Once I was at Burger King drive through. It took a bit longer than normal. Not much, I had just started to notice when food arrived. And I got a free something - (i forget what it was) - for the delay. I laughed and told em I hardly noticed. I took it though. No sense tossing it out.

And drive thru's probably need to keep researching speed for competition. Who wants to have the slowest burger line in town?

ACCURACY - that's what I like. Give me OK speed but EXCELLENT accuracy anyday.

@floraposte: Some manager is going to get some ideas from your second point.

"Joey, I have a special project for you and that new '92 Camaro you just bought."

@HRHKingFridayXX: I don't necessarily mean "experienced" just disciplined. Make the the staff do their effing work, and you'll meet your time goals without cheating.

I agree with the OP here - if as consumers we want good service then we can't cooperate in their cheating of the system. And making excuses and shaking a finger a corporate doesn't solve the problem.

(8 years of service experience as both minimum wage peon and teenaged manager - who still made both sales and salary goals for four years straight).

@Ronin-Democrat: Well, you could claim a high incidence of people just blowing through without buying anything, but that excuse wouldn't fly during the busy times when people aren't likely to use a drive through as a quick turnaround (I have seen this happen late at night for some odd reason)

@HRHKingFridayXX: Yes. Frankly if fast food managers are competent they will find a job that pays a living wage.

Target times its cashiers on the speed of their transaction. Too slow, and your screen showed a big "R". Too many Rs and the front-lanes team lead would pull you aside for "coaching".

System sounds great in theory but it has one huge flaw, people who take forever to put their card in. Frequently, people would take AGES to get their credit card out of their purse/wallet. Of course everytime this happened, you'd get an R.

This is why Target cashiers encourage you to put your credit card into the machine as items are being scanned to keep the times down.

Although any seasoned cashier knows how to stop the timer in the system which I dont' feel is cheating as the transaction is done. It's the customer who is holding it up at this point.

@Smashville:

This is like a Bellerophontic Letter, except for the unwitting part though.

When I was in high school I worked at a BK where the management would just do this during slow times, hop in their car outside and just do laps around the drive thru.

Quick service wont fix BKs problems. BK's management is focusing on measuring service time while missing the boat on having stores that appear clean and freshly painted. And having food that people want. In my neighborhood, the BK's look old and poorly maintained compared to the McDonald's that are usually on the same street. Watch them at breakfast -- all the cars are at McDs and the BK drive though is empty.

for places like BK it's quite evident on the reason for some others like steak and shake and buona beef that some items just take longer to cook and they need to keep the drive thru clear. Bouna's even have official parking spots for drive thru customers to wait in.

@nibblersmom: Seriously? Psycho!

@ElPresidente408: And they wonder why they have such high turnover.

@nibblersmom:
Sorry, I didn't know it was you.

@ElPresidente408: I used to cooperatively run my card as they scanned my items. Then one day something rang up as much more expensive than I'd expected; it had been in a bin with the 50% off items, but was not itself 50% off. The cashier insisted that she couldn't remove things once scanned if I'd already run my card, nor could she cancel out my order, I HAD to sign, and then return the items. She tried to send me over to customer service to do the return, but I balked at that so she summoned a manager, but the manager also insisted that I first had to sign.

I thought this was ridiculous. I seriously considered writing "CHARGE NOT AUTHORIZED" instead of my signature, just to see what they did then. (I mean, what exactly do they do if the signature obviously does not match? Do they just not care if an unauthorized person is making the charge?) But I was in a hurry, so I signed, processed the return, and resolved to never run my card again until every item was scanned.

It wouldn't bother me at all to do that, especially since I think corporate sets unrealistic goals for drive-through times and the workers don't deserve to be punished. Then again, I'll take accurate service over super-fast service any day.

There are some places around here with ultra-sonic sensors mounted under the window, and the employee just leans out the window about halfway through your wait (if it's long) and blocks it for a second, re-setting it.

(800) 522-1278 Burger King Customer hotline number.

I remember the days of working the drive thru. I've seen the target times. I even talked with the training manager about them.

Sure, during lunch, you can beat the clock, that's when the store is fully staffed. Between lunch and breakfast... forget about the time. The kitchen is in the middle of switching over. After lunch? forget about it, over half the kitchen was sent home or is on a break, one of the two people left is washing dishes, which leaves one person to handle all the food. That one person gets caught off guard when school lets out and you have a gazillion random orders.

I did my best to make the 30 second time, but I was happy if I could get you your food in 2 minutes. 30 seconds is barely enough time to take the payment and hand out drinks.

Speaking of payments, if you know how much the food is going to cost, please have your money ready. I don't like being behind the person searching for change under the seats and the drive thru people hate it even more.

Oh, there's one more legit way to beat the clock. Know what the regulars order. I worked breakfast shift, if I recognized the voice, I'd often have their order in before they finished giving it.

Like other's said, if you get really good at a fast food job, it's time to move on to something else. I graduated HS and went to college. I don't miss smelling like a french fry after work.

@floraposte: Agreed. Although being told to back up and go forward is annoying and not really the right way to deal with the situation, the blogger seemed really presumptuous in trying to scold the drive-thru worker into falling in line with what could be ridiculously unrealistic expectations.

@coren: Having had the wonderful teenage experience of working at 3 (THREE!) different Burger King's I can tell you that most likely the drive thru times are not compared to sales data. I can also tell you it was very easy just to lean out the drive thru window when no customers were there to wave a tray in front of the timer to reset it and get a better average. But those sensers may be different than at other BK's.

This happens to me all the time at our Burger King, and sometimes Wendy's too.

@logicalnoise: Quite true. I eat only veggie burgers (the main reason I go to BK, along with the freaky fries), and I'm always asked to pull forward and wait. I dig it. They probably only sell a couple a day.